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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Ally Peter Thiel's Op-Ed Turns Heads for Being 'Beyond Nuts'
Peter Thiel, the billionaire supporter of Donald Trump, had much to say in an op-ed Friday in the Financial Times, resulting in some critical feedback. In “A Time for Truth and Reconciliation”—a reference to post-Apartheid policies in South Africa—Thiel anticipates the Trump administration being fully equipped to, once and for all, expose the “deep state.” He mentions Jeffrey Epstein, the JFK assassination, and COVID-19.
“Trump’s return to the White House augurs the apokálypsis of the ancien regime’s secrets,” Thiel writes. “The new administration’s revelations need not justify vengeance—reconstruction can go hand in hand with reconciliation. But for reconciliation to take place, there must first be truth." Thiel’s column drew a range of criticism, including from a columnist at the Financial Times, Edward Luce.
“Inside the mind of a Silicon Valley fanatic,” Luce reacted on BlueSky. “Peter Thiel makes Orwellian analogy between today’s liberal democracy and South African apartheid—and calls for a truth and reconciliation commission to uncover the crimes of America’s ‘Ancien regime.’ Beyond nuts.” Andy Craig, a scholar at the Cato Institute, had a similar response.
“It reflects very poorly on FT to have published this crazy person rant,” he wrote on the same site. “Obviously he would have got it out there somewhere anyway, but there was no good reason to let it appear under their masthead. If it was by Peter Smith this would have gone straight into their crank submissions file.” And Brookings Institute fellow Quinta Jurecic added that Thiel, “if he ever had it, has certainly lost it now.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-ally-peter-thiels-op-ed-turns-heads-for-being-beyond-nuts/

ratchiweenie
(8,094 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(53,892 posts)Progressives and liberals and Democrats and lefties are against blanket prejudicial condemnations of ethnic groups, are we not?
Yes, some of the Afrikaaners (note spelling) and some of the English South Africans brought in Apartheid.
It is also true that some of the Afrikaaners and some of the English South Africans reversed Apartheid. In fact they went better than the pre 1948 South Africa and the result is a new Constitution (strongly influenced by the Canadian one from the 1980s) and universal suffrage.
Automatic condemnation of a person for belonging in an ethnic or distinguishable group is not my way.
ratchiweenie
(8,094 posts)they changed their thinking. These are evil men. Can you really say the basic Africaaner thinking has changed? Not from what I read. They are just South African MAGA.
Bernardo de La Paz
(53,892 posts)The entirety of your post.
How is that different from the kind of posts most DUers dislike, the posts that assume Southeners are all hicks and uneducated because they are Southeners?
muriel_volestrangler
(103,371 posts)The Re-united National Party returned victoriously in the 1948 elections and subsequently enacted a mass of racial legislation that was designed to preserve white supremacy in South Africa; the National Party named its policy “apartheid.” The party went on to consolidate its power, absorbing the Afrikaner Party in 1951. It renamed itself the National Party of South Africa (1951) and gradually augmented its control of the House of Assembly—from 73 seats in 1948 to 134 seats (81 percent) in 1977. The party was led successively by Daniel F. Malan (1948–54), Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom (1954–58), Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (1958–66), John Vorster (1966–78), P.W. Botha (1978–89), F.W. de Klerk (1989–97), and Marthinus van Schalkwyk (1997–2005). The National Party also broke South Africa away from the Commonwealth, making it a republic in 1961. From the premiership of Vorster on, the National Party attempted what it termed an “enlightened” (verligte) policy on the race question; but this meant hardly more than speeding up the formation of Black “homelands” and alleviating—selectively—some of the apartheid policies found inconvenient to general economic and cultural development.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Party-political-party-South-Africa
The formal racism was very much based in the Afrikaaner community, while the English community was more liberal.
Bernardo de La Paz
(53,892 posts)Pre-judging is prejudice.
We should hold ourselves up to the same standard we ask of others when we condemn their prejudice expressed as automatic condemnation simply by having an ethnic or sexual identity?
I was the first to mention 1948.
paleotn
(20,199 posts)Particularly southern white Americans. I fit that demo perfectly. A white American, or a certain age, born and raised in the south, with a religious upbringing. But I look at my demo and wonder...what the fuck is wrong with you people?! A blanket statement that never bothered me because I know those people well. Sure, there are exceptions. Plenty of them, but the majority are not always pleasant by modern standards. The southern strategy worked. Need I say more? It seems Afrikaners fall into that same category. Exceptions, certainly, but enough nutters to make you wonder...is there something in the damn water down there?
Irish_Dem
(67,214 posts)God help us.
sop
(13,400 posts)“Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
Nazis moved to Argentina after the fall of the Third Reich, post-apartheid Afrikaners are moving to the United States.
wnylib
(25,211 posts)sop
(13,400 posts)Particularly when H-1B visa holders are dark-skinned foreigners from South Asian countries.
ratchiweenie
(8,094 posts)enough qualified Americans to take those jobs but also don't want to discourage the best and brightest around the world from coming here. It's not a black and white issue for me and not for many Americans.
whathehell
(30,117 posts)his positon on H-1B Visas. I am also against them for reasons having zero to do with color or race.
Think. Again.
(22,330 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(53,892 posts)rampartd
(1,803 posts)will he put q anon as chair of "truth and reconciliation?"
jeezus these people are stupid.
Renew Deal
(83,710 posts)And he wants to change all parts of society, not just tech policy. He was and probably still is close with Musk. Thiel was political before Musk was and is likely more sophisticated in his thought process.
dchill
(41,804 posts)How hard could that be, really?
highplainsdem
(55,159 posts)Beck23
(367 posts)Like Curtis Yarvin live in a fantasy world, and don't seem to understand that class warfare is not always based on race alone. There are millions more poor white people than poor black people in the US.
bluesbassman
(20,232 posts)His influence may not be as flashy as Musk’s, but it’s certainly at a disturbingly high level in the incoming administration.
yardwork
(66,041 posts)paleotn
(20,199 posts)And we thought the US was the land of nuts.